Experience DeFreitas Creations

About Fitzgerald DeFreitas

by Pe­ter Ray Blood
Fitzger­ald De Fre­itas, has been res­i­dent in the Unit­ed States for al­most half cen­tu­ry, but comes from Bel­mont and has decades of ex­pe­ri­ence de­sign­ing and cre­at­ing Car­ni­val cos­tumes in the States and lo­cal­ly. Mas vet­er­ans should re­mem­ber De Fre­itas cre­at­ing Os­car the Trash Can and Do­ra and the Dread­ful Drag­on in Pan­de­mo­ni­um's Sesame Street pre­sen­ta­tion in 1975. 

De­scrib­ing his in­tro­duc­tion to Car­ni­val and cos­tumes, De Fre­itas said, "I played mas as a child. My first cos­tume was Adam and my sis­ter played Eve in Kid­dies Car­ni­val. My moth­er de­signed our cos­tumes. I was sev­en and my sis­ter was five." By 11, De Fre­itas was de­sign­ing cos­tumes for him­self and his friends in Bel­mont. He grew up around cos­tume de­sign­ing, in­flu­enced by renowned mas de­sign­ers such as Jack Brath­waite, Rudolph Cor­by, Har­ry Basilon, and Al­bert Moore. His first ma­jor cos­tume de­sign–The Brazil­ian Chan­de­lier–placed sec­ond in the King of Car­ni­val fi­nal on Di­manche Gras. Now the fa­ther of six, grand­fa­ther of 25, and great-grand­fa­ther of three, "with two more on the way," De Fre­itas re­tired from full-time work in 1999. "I re­tired from the Seat­tle Art Mu­se­um, but I have con­tin­ued con­tribut­ing when pos­si­ble to stay ac­tive mak­ing Car­ni­val cos­tumes as well as lead­ing work­shops in cos­tume de­sign and wire-bend­ing."

De Fre­itas de­signed and built a va­ri­ety of Car­ni­val king, queen and in­di­vid­ual cos­tumes, mas­cots, mu­si­cal floats and even cre­at­ed a cos­tume for a wheel­chair-bound mas­quer­ad­er. Af­ter liv­ing in the US for more than four decades, he's al­so now well known through North Amer­i­can Caribbean com­mu­ni­ties for his pre­sen­ta­tions and ded­i­ca­tion to pro­mot­ing the art of cos­tum­ing. "I have con­duct­ed nu­mer­ous work­shops on cos­tume de­sign and cre­ation, cos­tume band pre­sen­ta­tions and wire bend­ing. I have served as artist in res­i­dence for a va­ri­ety of pub­lic school pro­grammes, the art mu­se­um's ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­grammes, and lo­cal com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tions in Seat­tle, Wash­ing­ton.

"In 2012, I was in­vit­ed by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Iowa's Arts De­part­ment to present a cos­tum­ing work­shop us­ing a but­ter­fly theme, the Monarch to be ex­act–that state's in­sect. They host­ed me for a week and in one week we cre­at­ed three but­ter­flies for their pre­sen­ta­tion at the end of the work­shop. "Af­ter­wards, they then used these cos­tumes in their Chil­dren's Mu­se­um for dis­play. Most re­cent­ly, in Au­gust, I de­signed and cre­at­ed the show­case band for the Cari­west or­gan­i­sa­tion in Ed­mon­ton, Al­ber­ta, Cana­da. This was a kid­dies' car­ni­val band. Their theme was Once Up­on A Time, and the char­ac­ters played were from Beau­ty and The Beast and Al­addin. The Ju­nior King's cos­tume was The Ge­nie and the Ju­nior Queen was Once Up­on A Time. There were al­so three in­di­vid­ual char­ac­ters–Fan­cy Lu­miere and Mr Chips from Beau­ty and The Beast; and Al­addin and his Fly­ing Car­pet from Al­addin. In ad­di­tion, there were four kid­dies' sec­tions de­signed, name­ly Jas­minettes, The Im­pe­r­i­al Guards, Cogsworth–The Clock, and Lu­miere–The Can­dle." This Au­gust, Cari­west cel­e­brat­ed its 30th year of pre­sent­ing Caribbean car­ni­val in Ed­mon­ton. 

De Fre­itas said: "I am a can­cer sur­vivor, ex­pe­ri­enc­ing all the usu­al shifts that come with ag­ing. I have my share of aches and pains but mas has been my pas­sion." These days he lives in Phoenix, Ari­zona–and is still in­volved with his cul­tur­al her­itage and love of mak­ing mas.

Prizes and Places

De Fre­itas has won first place in Ed­mon­ton's car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tions a record num­ber of times. His pre­sen­ta­tions have re­ceived the Con­ti­nen­tal Air­lines Award in the Seat­tle Seafair Torch­light Pa­rade; first place Best Band in the Black Com­mu­ni­ty Fes­ti­val Pa­rade; and Most Orig­i­nal Band Award in the Pa­cif­ic Na­tion­al Ex­hi­bi­tion Pa­rade in Van­cou­ver, British Co­lum­bia. He's pre­sent­ed cos­tumes in the New York Labor Day Caribbean Fes­ti­val, Boston's Car­ni­val, Mon­tre­al's Car­ifes­ta, Toron­to's Carib­ana and On­tario's Grape and Wine Fes­ti­val.

He has al­so de­signed cos­tumes for the Seat­tle-Van­cou­ver Con­nec­tion, the Point De­fi­ance Zoo and Aquar­i­um in Taco­ma, the Em­per­or's New Clothes, and Greg Thomp­son Pro­duc­tions. His Li­on­fish King cos­tume was a fea­tured part of his six-month in­stal­la­tion at the Seat­tle Art  Mu­se­um.